Sold to the Alpha Dons

A vase shattered against the wall behind me, missing my head by an inch. Shards of crystal rained down, slicing my bare arms as I flinched. A razor sharp shard grazed my cheekbone, warm blood trickling down like tears I refused to shed. I didn’t scream. I never screamed anymore.

 Breathe. Just breathe.

 “Useless,” Father spat, his voice dripping with venom. “Can’t even stand where I tell you to without trembling.”

 My father’s laced snarl curled through the air. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you, girl.”

 I forced my chin up, my pulse hammering against the bruises already darkening my throat from last night’s lesson.

 Across the room, Livia my perfect twin lounged on the velvet chaise, her manicured fingers plucking grapes from a silver tray. She smirked as a servant fed her another, her golden hair cascading in flawless waves. We were born minutes apart, but we might as well have been different species. Her hair cascaded in perfect champagne waves; mine hung in a frayed braid, hacked short last month when Father caught me daring to glance at his ledgers.

 “Pathetic,” Livia sighed, examining her pearl-crusted nails. “She flinches like a stray dog.”

 Where Livia wore silk, I wore hand-me-down rags. Where she glowed, I was dull my hair darker, my frame thinner, my eyes shadowed from nights spent locked in the cellar. But the real difference? She was loved. I was tolerated.

 Father grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising. “You’re coming with me.”

 I knew better than to resist.

 Don’t look. Don’t—

 “Watch,” Father hissed, wrenching my head forward as he selected a butcher’s knife from the wall.

 The dungeon stank of iron and fear. The man strapped to the chair was already screaming before Father even picked up the pliers.

 “This is what happens to rats who steal from me,” Father said, his voice eerily calm as he ripped out a fingernail. Blood sprayed. The man’s howls echoed off the stone walls.

 I stood frozen, my stomach heaving. This was my punishment for breathing wrong, for existing, for daring to look too much like Livia without deserving it.

 Father would never drag her down here. She was his angel. I was his shame.

 The blade glinted. The man screamed before it even touched him.

 I knew this ritual. Knew the way Father’s breath hitched with pleasure as he made the first incision along the man’s ribs slow, so slow peeling back skin like parchment. Blood welled in ruby beads, then poured in hot rivulets down the chair legs.

 Thump. Thump. Thump.

 Drip after drip after—

 “Count his fingers, Selene.” Father’s voice slithered through the ringing in my ears.

 The bolt cutters gleamed.

 One. The man’s shriek shattered my teeth.

 Two. His pinky hit the floor with a wet *tap*.

 Three. My stomach heaved. Bile scorched my throat.

 Livia would be eating lemon cakes right now.

 By five, the man had passed out. Father sighed, tossing the ruined hand into the brackish water bucket. The splash painted my ankles crimson.

 “Revive him.”

 The ice water hit the man’s face. His wail scraped my bones raw.

 When it was over, the man was a sobbing, broken mess. Father tossed the bloodied tools onto the table and turned to me.

 “Clean it up.”

 No gloves. No mercy. Just me, the bucket, and the chunks of flesh I had to scrape off the floor.

 The servants could have done it. But humiliation was the point.

 The blood under my nails wasn’t mine.

 The vomit on my dress wasn’t mine.

 The screams in my skull?

 Those, I kept.

 As I scrubbed, my hands shaking, I let myself imagine just for a second what it would feel like to wrap those bloodied fingers around my father’s throat.

 Then I buried the thought

 The dungeon’s iron door clanged shut behind me, sealing away the man’s whimpers. My hands were still streaked with his blood, the metallic stench clinging to my skin like a second layer of filth. I didn’t bother washing up. No amount of scrubbing could clean off the rot of this house.

 The servants’ corridor was narrow, the stone walls slick with damp. As I turned the corner, the hushed snickers began.

 “Look who’s back from her playdate with the Don," sneered Rosa, the head maid, her lip curled as she deliberately bumped my shoulder. A pitcher of water sloshed over the edge, soaking my already threadbare dress.

 I didn’t react. Reacting meant more attention. More attention meant more lessons from Father.

 “Bet she fainted again," another maid, Clara, mocked under her breath. “Little mouse can’t even stomach her own family’s business."

 I kept walking, their laughter nipping at my heels like starving dogs.

 My room if you could call it that was a glorified closet at the back of the servants’ wing. No windows. No fire. Just a cot with a moth-eaten blanket and a single candle stub drowning in its own wax.

 The door didn’t even lock.

 I slumped onto the cot, the wood slats groaning under my weight. A rustle came from the corner rats, again. I’d given up shooing them away. At least they didn’t pretend to like me.

 A knock. Too sharp to be friendly.

 “Dinner," barked a voice. Not a request. A taunt.

 I opened the door to find a tin plate shoved at my chest. Cold porridge, half-spilled. The heel of stale bread was green at the edges.

 “Cook says you’re not worth the good flour," the kitchen boy smirked before sauntering off.

 I ate it anyway. Hunger was the one thing I was allowed to feel without punishment.

 A fitting reflection.

 My face was pale, my cheekbones too sharp. The only thing Livia and I shared were our eyes silver, like Father’s. But where hers sparkled, mine were dull. Dead.

 A bruise bloomed on my collarbone where Father had grabbed me earlier. I pressed a finger to it, savoring the sting. Proof I was still here. Still alive.

 Somewhere above me, music swelled the grand piano in the east parlor. Livia was practicing again.

 I wondered if she ever thought about me. If she ever lay awake, listening to the rats scuttle in the walls, and felt guilty.

 Then I laughed a hollow, broken sound.

 Of course she didn’t.